ADEC Brisbane: CFD modelling for drainage design

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling has been applied to Australian civil engineering hydraulics projects for decades. However, CFD has yet to be broadly adopted within the Australian drainage industry. This event will review potential opportunities for CFD modelling of drainage applications, explore drainage CFD case studies, present an overview of the typical CFD modelling workflow, and discuss what skills are required to conduct CFD modelling.

CFD in the drainage industry

Conveying water in drainage infrastructure offers some of the most exciting and challenging applications for hydraulic engineers. The hydraulics in these applications offer combinations of free surface and pressurised flow conditions, often with extremely turbulent and energetic flows, in which considerations of the air phase, air entrainment, or grit and sediment movement are equally important. Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modelling provides the ability to conduct advanced, three-dimensional investigations of conveyance infrastructure, including drainage pits, hydraulic control structures, drop structures, flow

splitters, energy dissipators, pump stations, combined sewer overflows, sewers and wet tunnel designs.

CFD modelling involves numerical techniques to solve the equations of motion for fluids to obtain transient, three-dimensional solutions to multi-scale, multi-physics flow problems. An array of physical and numerical options allows modellers to apply CFD to a wide variety of

fluid flow problems. This makes it well suited to a variety of applications in the drainage industry, so come along to learn about how CFD modelling could help improve your drainage designs. We will discuss potential CFD applications for drainage problems and review a few case studies of how CFD can be utilised to support and drainage project. The presentation will also address the typical CFD modelling workflow and skills required to create and understand these models.

Agenda:

- What is CFD modelling?

- Potential applications in a drainage context

- Overview of the CFD modelling workflow

- Review of specific skills needed to upskill yourself in CFD

- Case studies and examples of CFD applied to drainage projects

- Networking following the event

Presenters:

Eric Lemont, General Manager, Flow Science Australasia

Steven Voss, Senior Surface Water Engineer, Arup